Page:Hard-pan; a story of bonanza fortunes (IA hardpanbonanza00bonnrich).pdf/241

Rh wide and menacing as she stood thus hesitating on its verge. For the first time in her life she realized what it meant to be alone, to be thrown into that great maelstrom without a hand to hold or a shoulder to lean on.

She had no intimates—few acquaintances, even. The houses and streets of San Francisco came to her mind with a more friendly aspect than the people. Mrs. Seymour had asked her if she should write to any one. She had answered that there was no one to write to. The good-natured landlady had gazed at the girl—looking so slight and pale in her somber draperies—with a frowning and fidgeted anxiety. She thought it a very hazardous thing to let this delicate creature, still half stupefied by a sudden blow, go away alone and unprotected into a city of strangers. But Viola insisted. To herself she kept reiterating, "I want to go home." It seemed to her as if the gaunt, gray city, crowded on its wind-swept hills, would welcome her with the silent, understanding love of a mother. It was the one friend she knew and trusted.

After the expenses of the colonel's funeral were paid and her score settled with Mrs. Seymour, she had still nearly one thousand dollars left. This to her represented a little fortune. Even without work she could live on it for several years. Economy had been the only